North American Ellipsometry Association

A specific Purpose of the North American Ellipsometry Association (NAEA) is to provide a forum for scientific and technical discussions, and to provide continuing education through the organization and sponsorship of symposia, topical conferences, short courses, workshops, and exhibits.  The Association endeavors to organize and conduct biennial national symposia on science and technology topics of interest to the Association and its Members.

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Upcoming

1^st American Workshop on Ellipsometry (AWE-1):  February 28 – March 3, 2027, in Lincoln, NE

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Past

10^th International Conference on Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (ICSE-10):  June 8-13, 2025, in Boulder, CO, USA

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Brief History of ICSE

The International Conference on Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (ICSE) series was founded in 1993 and is held approximately every three years to share new ideas related to ellipsometric and optical characterization applications such as materials characterization, real-time process analysis and control, and instrumentation development that takes advantage of the polarization properties of electromagnetic radiation in the spectral region from terahertz to soft-x-ray wavelengths.  ICSE meetings bring together an international cohort of experienced scientists and leaders of the community, as well as postdoctoral research associates, other early-career professionals, graduate and undergraduate students.

At the ICSE-10 in 2025, the organizers and attendees looked back in appreciation of not only how far the field has come, but also how far science and technology has evolved.

The present ICSE series follows three symposia/ conferences on ellipsometry, without the adjective “spectroscopic”.  These meetings were held at the National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) in Washington, DC, in 1963, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1968, and in Paris in 1983.  The foreword of the 1963 proceedings noted that “an important responsibility of the NBS is the development and improvement of measurement techniques and the dissemination of information about them.”

All three precursor proceedings make for an interesting reading still today, not only because the absence of spectroscopy resulted in severely limited possibilities regarding applications, but also because the first two proceedings include audience questions and comments.  In the first two symposia, much time was spent interpreting the Fresnel equations and studying time-dependent processes, such as oxidation and annealing.  Difficulties in accurately determining the null condition for null ellipsometers precluded efforts at spectroscopy.  Only the 546.1 nm wavelength of the mercury green line was largely understood.  However, by the time of the 1983 Paris conference, this had begun to change.  A decade later, by the 1993 Paris conference, spectroscopic ellipsometry had already been well established.

Please find a link collection of past conference/ symposium proceedings here!